1948 CE

A segregated beach in South Africa, 1982

The government of South Africa begins enacting more rigorous
and authoritarian segregation laws that cement the ideology of apartheid
into law. The laws detail how and where the colored population lives and
works, strip the colored population of their ability to vote, and go to
great length to maintain white racial purity.

1949 CE

The Australian Parliament passes the Social
Services Consolidation Act, which provides a number of federal benefits
to Aboriginal natives of Australia who meet qualifications that were largely
in accord with Parliament's assimilationist policy towards the Aboriginal
people.

1950-1954 CE

Joseph McCarthy

U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy launches his
anti-Communist campaign, charging, but not substantiating, treachery
among top ranks of the U.S. Government.

1950 CE

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees is established by the United Nations General Assembly. The
agency is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect
refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. The agency is to ensure
that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge
in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate
locally or to resettle in a third country.

1951 CE

1952 CE

The U.S. Congress passes the Immigration and
Nationality Act (also known as the McCarran-Walter Act), which ends the
last racial and ethnic barriers to naturalization of aliens living in the
U.S., but reduces the ethnic quotas for immigrants to the U.S. from eastern
and southeastern Europe.

1962 CE

Voting
rights, though not compulsory, are
extended to all Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders by the Australian
Parliament. (In 1984 the electoral law is changed to remove any distinctions
between indigenous peoples and other citizens.)